Ann, etal: That's ONE reason why as soon as I finish w/ a group of websites, I ALWAYS run CCLEANER. In case you're not familiar with this program, it's available as freeware or a "professional version. The freeware version works fine for me. Essentially what it does is to go through all the "temporary" folders, etc. and remove the contents. Seems to work pretty darn good for me, although the PCs here are still all WINDOWS XP PRO, so I can't vouch for WINDOWS 8. I had AVG TECHNOLOGIES also loaded, but it slowed down processing to such a crawl that I removed it. Ditto for SPYBOT.....

CCLEANER does a good job of deleting ALL cookies, although I recently noticed that they give you an option to retain the ones you want. WHY anyone would want to retain cookies so that the "owning" software can spy on a user, I have no idea, but evidently they got a sufficient # of complaints so they added it in.

IF ONY we could have MS-DOS ver 8 now........... Wouldn't that be a wonderful world????

OLD_CURMUDGEON, I think you're spot on about tools like this one assisting and even enabling smaller and independent businesses.Regarding your second comment: yes, that ad's appearance is the result of a cookie. This is part of the "tailoring" experience--which uses website visitor tracking--now common in Google searches and web navigation. I especially notice it right after I've bought something online: ads for that website start appearing everywhere, often in incongruous contexts.

Several posts seem to suggest that this technology won't expand beyound the corporate manufacturing realm. I disagree in one regard. While I don't expect "Joe Sixpack" to run out to BEST BUY to get his $1000 3D printer, either now or in 5 years, I'd be willing to bet that a lot of "home" engineers would invest in one for a lot of reasons, including advancing an idea for some new product by being able to fabricate the mechanical components in the privacy of their workshop/spare bedroom, etc.

Interestingly, recently I went to the NEWSDAY newspaper site. At the top of the home page appeared an advertisement for a TEKTRONIX MDO oscilloscope. Now, WHY would that appear in a general circulation newspaper? My only guess is that there is a cookie file in my PC which picked up on the fact that I recently went to the TEKTRONIX website. I'd be hard-pressed to know that this TEK ad appeared across the board to everyone who dialed into NEWSDAY on that particular day....

Thanks for the clarification Mydesign. As we state in the article, this only just got funded on Kickstarter, shipping won't begin until next year, and these are being made more or less one at a time, not in high volumes for distribution in multiple locations. I suspect we'll be seeing a lot more of this type of machine design, in 3D printing and other types of manufacturing and design tools. The model is more like downloading music or ordering a CD from an artist's website, instead of going to a store to buy a CD.

"thanks for clarifying your earlier comment. Saying this machine is designed for most people's use is a very different statement from saying it's already available in mass quantities at your local big box store"

Ann, my question is whether its readily available in nearby shops, atleast in US or Europe.

"Usually devices that feature a single function initially eventually evolve into multi-functional devices. Smartphones are a fine example of this--remember when we had a device just for talking on the phone?"

Elizabeth, I think Smartphones is the latest addition. Before that All in one printers are in place, which have a printer, scanner, copier, fax and phone.

Yes, Pubudu, I agree. Combining features into one product seems to be a cost-effective and efficient way to ensure new technologies become mainstream. As in my previous example, it did wonders for the mobile device market and actually changed people's lives (I speak from experience) when Apple introduced the first iPhone with integrated features.

Chuck, that does make a lot of sense from the consumer's standpoint. But already, copyright and intellectual property issues have arisen around 3D printing and its application through the cloud, which is being called distributed and/or remote manufacturing. I can see those being a big problem for companies like Mattel. It's a lot like the whole digital rights thing about music and movies online.

Elizabeth, we may have think in the same way that the 3in1 printer came in to the market, now AI has come in the play where it can scan and re edit the Scand doc without hassle and re print. I feel that the 3D printer will also go through the same way.

A few weeks ago, Ford Motor Co. quietly announced that it was rolling out a new wrinkle to the powerful safety feature called stability control, adding even more lifesaving potential to a technology that has already been very successful.

It won't be too much longer and hardware design, as we used to know it, will be remembered alongside the slide rule and the Karnaugh map. You will need to move beyond those familiar bits and bytes into the new world of software centric design.

People who want to take advantage of solar energy in their homes no longer need to install a bolt-on solar-panel system atop their houses -- they can integrate solar-energy-harvesting shingles directing into an existing or new roof instead.

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